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LG Hom-Bot Square (VR6270 LVMB)

LG has officially announced the new square shaped vacuum cleaner model the Hom-Bot Square. The model was previously seen in a short review a few months ago and being referred as Hom-Bot 3.0, but as it turned out today, the official name is LG Hom-Bot Square.

The third generation of Hom-bots seems to concentrate on better cleaning quality. The new shape and the 1 cm longer side brushes not only allow the robot to clean the corners more efficiently (72% better cleaning in corners), but the larger size provides room for a larger dust bin (0.6 liter instead of the old 0.45 liter) as well.

The robot's navigation system was updated to Dual Eye 2.0 Mapping. As previous models, the Hom-Bot Square uses one camera on the top (Ceiling Vision based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) and an optical flow sensor on the bottom to create a map of the area and localize the robot within that map. The new 2.0 system uses a new top camera system that allows the robot to see more details in dark by adjusting the sensitivity of the sensor and the aperture of the lens. The new system is called II-SLAM (Illumination Invariant based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping).

The Hom-Bot Square uses the same ultrasonic distance sensors as its predecessors, allowing the robot to see the entire area in front of it. The new learning function lets the robot to memorize the obstacles and boundaries of the room so after the first run it will provide a better cleaning. Unfortunately the mapping will stay in the memory only if we don't move the robot by hand (slight movements are allowed though).

The new My Space function is designed to help cleaning separate areas like a part of a kitchen or a hallway. Instead of marking the boundaries with virtual walls, the user can drive the robot around along the edges of the area and the robot will only clean the marked parts of the floor. This memory is one time only and will be reset when cleaning of the area is done. Besides these, the robot still sports the Spiral (spot), the Zig Zag and the Cell by Cell cleaning modes like its predecessors did.

The robot has an improved cleaning mode that shines especially on carpets. The Hom-Bot Square is capable of climbing on carpets up to 1.5 cm in thickness. When Smart Turbo mode is activated, the robot will switch to Turbo mode on carpets, allowing the vacuum suction motor to run 30% faster. In addition to this the robot can keep cleaning until the battery is dead, what in smaller and mid sized houses could mean several passes and more thorough cleaning.

The new model also called the Carpet Master or VR6270 LVMB and will soon (hopefully this year) be available in Germany on a price between €600-700. LG also plans to release the simple version of the original single-eye Hom-Bot before Christmas for under €300. Hom-Bot Square is also planned to be launched in several other countries in Europe (Spain, France and Italy included) and in the US later this year or early next year. Later LG will announce another version with a brush bar designed for hard floors.